(31) Behold! the stars are plainly incorporated or compacted out of or from God; but thou must understand the difference between the stars and God, for the stars are not the heart and the meek pure Deity, which man is to honour and worship as God; but they are the innermost and sharpest birth or geniture, wherein all things stand in a wrestling and a fighting, wherein the heart of God always generateth itself, and wherein the Holy Ghost continually riseth up from the rising of the life.

(29) But that the birth, or the body of the stars in their seat, does not change or alter (but do as they did from eternity), signifieth that there shall be a constant, continued birth or geniture, whereby, in one uniform operation, which yet stands in the infiniteness, the benumbed body of the earth should continually and constantly be kindled again, and generate itself anew, and so also should the house of darkness of the deep above the earth; whereby the new body might continually and constantly be generated out of death, till time should be accomplished, and the whole newborn body [perfected]. Now thou wilt object and say, Then sure the stars are God, and they must be honoured and worshipped as God.

(65) Now when thou beholdest the sun and stars, thou must not think that they are the holy and pure God, and thou must not offer to pray to them, or ask anything of them, for they are not the holy God, but are the kindled, austere birth or geniture of his body, wherein love and wrath wrestle the one with the other.

(29) Every star has a several peculiar property, which thou may perceive by the curious ornament of the budding, blossoming earth. And the Creator has therefore rebuilt and revived again the old kindled body into so many and various powers, that through this old life, in the wrath, such a new life might generate itself therein, through the closure of heaven, that that new life might have all the powers and operations that ever the old had before the times of wrath, that it might qualify, mix or unite with the pure Deity, distinct from this world, and that it might be one holy God, together with the Deity without, distinct from this world.

(29) Thou must not conceive that in the body of the stars is the triumphing Holy Trinity, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in which there is no evil, for it is the light-holy, eternal fountain of joy, which is indivisible and unchangeable, which no creature can sufficiently apprehend or express; which dwelleth and is above the body of the stars in itself, whose depth no creature is able to measure or fathom.

(5) And if the star itself was changed and smiled, What became I, who by my nature am Exceeding mutable in every guise! As, in a fish-pond which is pure and tranquil, The fishes draw to that which from without Comes in such fashion that their food they deem it; So I beheld more than a thousand splendours Drawing towards us, and in each was heard: "Lo, this is she who shall increase our love." And as each one was coming unto us, Full of beatitude the shade was seen, By the effulgence clear that issued from it. Think, Reader, if what here is just beginning No farther should proceed, how thou wouldst have An agonizing need of knowing more; And of thyself thou'lt see how I from these Was in desire of hearing their conditions, As they unto mine eyes were manifest. "O thou well-born, unto whom Grace concedes To see the thrones of the eternal triumph, Or ever yet the warfare be abandoned With light that through the whole of heaven is spread Kindled are we, and hence if thou desirest To know of us, at thine own pleasure sate thee."

(25) eln Brief, the Regimen of the Stars [or starry Region] makes not a holy Man; and although Men may converse under a holy Show, yet they are but Hypocrites, and desire to get Honour [and Esteem] thereby, their Mind sticks nevertheless in Covetousness and Pride, and in fleshly Pleasure, in mere base Lechery and Lust, and they are in the Sight of God (according to the Desire of this World) no other than mere Knaves, proud, wilful, [self-conceited] Thieves, Robbers, and Murderers. There is not one, who as to the Spirit of this World is righteous, we are altogether Children of Deceit and Falshood; and according to this Image (which we have received from the Spirit of this World) we belong to eternal Death, but not to Paradise; except it be, that we become regenerated anew, out of the Center of the precious Virgin, who with her Rays averts the Mind from the ungodly Ways of Sin and Wickedness.

(33) For from the heaven the stars have their first kindling, and are only as an instrument, which God useth to the birth or geniture.

(3) But if thou wouldst "see" him, bethink thee of the sun, bethink thee of moon's course, bethink thee of the order of the stars. Who is the One who watcheth o'er that order? For every order hath its boundaries marked out by place and number. The sun's the greatest god of gods in heaven; to whom all of the heavenly gods give place as unto king and master. And he, this so-great one, he greater than the earth and sea, endures to have above him circling smaller stars than him. Out of respect to Whom, or out of fear of Whom, my son, [doth he do this]? Nor like nor equal is the course each of these stars describes in heaven. Who [then] is He who marketh out the manner of their course and its extent?

(63) This description sheweth that the first writer did not know what the stars are, though he was capable of understanding the right or law of God, and has taken hold on the Deity at the heart, and looked upon or had respect to the heart, to consider what the heart and kernel of this creation is; though the spirit kept the astral and outermost dead birth or geniture hidden from him, and did only drive him in faith to the heart of the Deity.

(5) So the Matter of this World, as also the Stars and Elements, must not be looked upon, as if God was not therein. His Eternal Wisdom and Virtue [or Power] has formed itself with the Fiat in all Things, and he Himself is the Master- Workman; and all Things went forth in the Fiat, every Thing in its own Essence, Virtue and Property. For as every Star in the Firmament has a Property different from the other; thus is it with the Mother also, out of which the fifth Essence of the Stars went forth. For when the fiery Form of the Stars was separated from her, she was not presently severed from the first eternal Birth-Right, but she kept her first eternal Virtue. Only the rising Power of the Fire is severed from her, so that she is become a pleasant Refreshment, and a kind Mother to her Children.

(90) He that does not know nor understand this, he does not at all know the birth of the stars, for all, concreted together, is one body. When once life is generated in any creature, the creature's life stands or subsisteth afterwards in the creature's own body, as the birth or geniture of the natural body of this world stands or subsisteth in its own body; for every life must be generated according to the right, law or ordinance of the Deity, as the Deity generateth itself continually.

(2) And it will prove a burden unto men; and on account of this they will despise and cease to love this Cosmos as a whole,—the changeless work of God; the glorious construction of the Good, comprised of multifold variety of forms; the engine of God’s Will, supporting His own work ungrudgingly; the multitudinous whole massed in a unity of all, that should be reverenced, praised and loved,—by them at least who have the eyes to see. For Darkness will be set before the Light, and Death will be thought preferable to Life. No one will raise his eyes to Heaven; the pious man will be considered mad, the impious a sage; the frenzied held as strong, the worst as best.

(20) ¶But immediately, in those days after that tribulation, there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars: the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall; and the powers that are in the heavens shall be shaken: and upon the earth [shall be] distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and waves roaring: men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

(15) Chapter VIII. That no one may doubt, we declare that God has sent messengers and signs in the heavens, namely, the i new stars in Serpentarius and Cygnus, to show that a great Council of the Elect is to take place. This proves that God reveals in visible nature--for the discerning few--signs and symbols of all things that are coming to pass. God has given man two eyes, two nostrils, and two ears, but only one tongue. Whereas the eyes, the nostrils, and the ears admit the wisdom of Nature into the mind, the tongue alone may give it forth. In various ages there have been illumined ones who have seen, smelt, tasted, or heard the will of God, but it will shortly come to pass that those who have seen, smelt, tasted, or heard shall speak, and truth shall be revealed. Before this revelation of righteousness is possible, however, the world must sleep away the intoxication of her poisoned chalice (filled with the false life of the theological vine) and, opening her heart to virtue and understanding, welcome the rising sun of Truth.

(25) Now when this is done, then the spirit which has opened the gates is angry, because none will go OUT and IN at its doors any more, and then it flings the doorposts into the abyss, and then there is no more time at all. Those that are within, remain within; and those that are without, remain without. AMEN. Now it may be asked, What are the stars? Answer.

(15) And though Moses has written very rightly, that they should govern the Day and the Night, and should separate the Light from the Darkness, and make Times and Seasons, Years and Days, yet it is not plain enough to be understood by the desirous Reader. For there is found a very high Thing in the Virtue and Power of the Stars; [which is,] that every Life, Growth, Colour, and Virtue, Thickness, and Thinness, Smallness, and Greatness, Good, and Evil, is moved and stirred by their Power. For this Cause the wise Heathens relied upon them, and honoured them as Gods. Therefore I will write something of their Original, as far as is permitted to me at this Time, for their Sakes that seek and desire the Pearl. But I have written nothing for the Swine, and other bestial Men, who trample the Pearl into the Dirt, and scorn and contemn the Spirit of Knowledge; such as they may, with the first World, expect a Deluge, or Flood of Fire; and seeing they will bear no angelical Image, therefore they must bear the Images of Lions, Dragons, and other evil Beasts, and Worms, [or creeping Things.] And if they will not admit of good Counsel that God may help them, then they must look to find by Experience, Whether the Scriptures of Prophesy lie to them or no.

(27) But the stars in general are, and signify, the wonderful proportion or changing variety of God. For when God created the stars, he created them out of the rising up of the infinity, out of the old body of God then further kindled.

(32) Indeed they honoured, prayed to, or worshipped the sun and stars for gods, but knew not how these were created or came to be, nor out of what they came to be: For they might well have thought that that which proceeded from somewhat, and that that which created this, must needs be older and higher or greater than all the stars.

(72) All the stars which men see, and those which they do not see, they all signify the power of God the Father; and out of these stars is generated the sun, which is the heart of all the stars.